South Dakota Introduces Bill To Abolish Common Core

A bill is making it’s way through the South Dakota legislature that would require that the state Board of Education finish any association with the federal standards by June of 2017. House Bill 1223 is making headlines in the Mount Rushmore State this week while the Common Core battle has been raging in it’s neighbor to the north.

Math and reading standards hang in the balance as lawmakers prepare to make a final decision on a bill that would eradicate Common Core in South Dakota.

After years of implementing the standards and spending millions of taxpayer dollars on training and curriculum, South Dakota schools would eventually phase out Common Core, according to a bill scheduled for a hearing Tuesday on the House of Representatives floor.

The bill was killed in the House’s education committee last week, but resurrected on the floor by lawmakers wishing to bring the measure before the larger body.

The bill allows plenty of time for schools to find a replacement before they abandon Common Core, said Mary Scheel-Buysse, co-founder of South Dakotans Against Common Core.

“We didn’t get into Common Core overnight,” Scheel-Buysse said. “We’re not going to get out of Common Core overnight.”

The bill requires the state Department of Education to end any involvement with standards by June 30, 2017.

A representative for the department raised questions about the timeline. Any new standards must go through four public hearings, all hosted by the state Board of Education. The board meets four times a year.

Work on new math and reading standards would have to begin immediately, department spokeswoman Mary Stadick Smith said.

This spring, thousands of students will take Common Core-based assessments in math and reading. State officials have spent at least $4 million on training alone during the roll out of the standards, adopted in a consortium of states, and it’s hard to say how much more local school districts have spent on curriculum and materials, Stadick Smith said.

“Standards form that backbone of that framework for what teachers do on a day to day basis in their classroom,” Stadick Smith said. “If that is gone or removed, what backbone or framework do we have then?”

Detractors say the standards take away local control, and force teachers to use developmentally inappropriate learning in class.

South Dakota does not seem to have a thriving Common Core opposition from it’s parents like other states do. The South Dakotans Against Common Core website does not appear to have been updated recently. However, this is becoming a hot political issue across the country and the lawmakers who have restarted this bill may have the best interests of their constituents at heart… or they may be keenly aware that their continued employment depends on them backing this measure.